Cascade

On November 11, we celebrated the Demo Day of Techstars Tokyo Accelerator — the 22nd startup accelerator I’ve had the honor to mentor so far. This year, I was privileged to serve as the Lead Mentor for two amazing teams: Trissino (Techstars '25) and Cascade. I still remember meeting them (Kazuki Miyauchi, Taka Morinaga, and GaganDeep Tomar) on the first day of Mentor Matching — and how quickly they shifted into growth mode. From understanding their products and market positioning, testing the UX myself and giving feedback, to refining sales decks, fundraising pitches, and even customer-required security documentation — every discussion and late-night meeting led us closer to Demo Day. What I admire most about these founders is their relentless effort, persistence, and refusal to give up. Just last week, during one of our final sessions, I asked them to pitch again. They were well-prepared, yet we knew we couldn’t afford to relax — not even for a moment. From word choice and phrasing to tone and pacing, every sentence was polished with the intention to deliver the most powerful pitch possible. Although I couldn’t attend the Demo Day in Tokyo in person due to a business trip in Paris, seeing their photos on stage glowing with confidence truly made me proud. Three months may not seem long, but witnessing the product iterations, new clients, LOIs, and consistent weekly progress — that’s the true spirit of #entrepreneurship. I’m so proud of what you’ve achieved and excited to see where your next stage will take you! And, of course, a big thank you to the Techstars Tokyo Accelerator team, Yuki Shirato, Chloe Takahashi, and JETRO - Japan External Trade Organization  team, Noriya Tarutani, Arisa Sonoda, Kimi Sakoda, and others, for your ongoing support in growing Japan’s startup ecosystem globally. You all know I’m always here if you ever need a hand. I'm also happy to be part of the lead mentor group with Casey Wahl, Ron Drabkin, and Svetlana Stotskaya during these three months.

(Japanese follows English) 🧨🍰Celebrating an incredible Techstars Tokyo Accelerator 2025 Demo Day!! 12 startups backed by Techstars took the stage with inspiring pitches🎙️🎤 When I returned from the San Francisco Bay Area 🇺🇸 on November 11, 2021 (exactly four years ago today‼️), I never imagined I’d be able to engage in such internationally collaborative initiatives here in Japan 🇯🇵. 🎙️I’m proud to have served as the moderator for a panel featuring 3️⃣three serial entrepreneurs 👨💻who have each founded more than three companies🚀. David Cohen, Co-Founder and CEO, Techstars Tom Moss, Co-Founder and CEO, Vital Signals and Co-Founder, Skydio Barry O'Neill, Partner, 株式会社バリュークリエイト and Co-founder, Upstart Games 🤔What’s even more impressive is that several high-profile entrepreneurs🎮🧩 served as mentors for the Techstars cohort. 🌲Kevin Lin, Co-Founder of Twitch (Acquired by Amazon for about 1 billion USD) 🦆Kun Gao, Co-Founder of Crunchyroll (acquired by Sony for about $1.2 billion) 🇺🇸Elizabeth Yin , GP of Hustle Fund Aldrich Huang, Bob Upham, Casey Wahl, Gen Tsuchikawa, Jacob Vorsø Pedersen, Ron Drabkin, Sinead Kaiya And many angel investors and international VCs also came to join us. 🇸🇬Shiyan K., GP of Hustle Fund 🇺🇸Andrew Schoen, Partner of New Enterprise Associates (NEA) 🇺🇸Murat Aktihanoglu, GP of Remarkable Ventures 🇺🇸Peter Stern, Angel Investor 🇺🇸 Degerhan Usluel, Chairman at TGGV And most importantly, the stars of the show — 12 startups delivered world-class pitches. SoranoAI ／ O-ID株式会社 ／DLeader, Inc. (Techstars '25) ／OverwatchAI ／Plexis.ai (Techstars '25) ／Boxtree, Inc. (Techstars '25) ／ Blueconomy AI (Techstars'25) ／ Trissino Inc／Tokoshie Inc. (Techstars '25) ／Contera.ai／OneInbox.ai (Techstars '25) ／Cascade ／ 🔥Techstars Tokyo Accelerator 2025 Demo Day、最高でした🎉 世界中の起業家・投資家・メンターが東京に集結し、12社のスタートアップが熱いピッチを披露❤️🔥 🇺🇸サンフランシスコから帰国してちょうど4年。 日本でも、こんなにグローバルで刺激的な場を創れるなんて感無量です🇯🇵🌏 #TechstarsTokyo #StartupEcosystem #JETRO

🌟 Return to the Techstars Tokyo Accelerator Family! 🌟 I had the incredible opportunity to return as a guest speaker for the workshop "From Data to Delight: UX Strategies for Continuous Product Optimization and Growth" with the talented founders of the 2025 cohort during my short trip to Tokyo. 🚀 Thank you to Yuki Shirato, Chloe Takahashi, Sola Ebina, Satomi Hoshi for the invitation and arrangement. During our session, we dove deep into the essential mindset shifts for early-stage product development, crafted strategic product roadmaps, and explored effective fundraising plans. We also shared hands-on tactics for conducting user interviews, covering everything from crafting the perfect question bank to setting the right environment. One of the key takeaways? How to extract genuine insights from user interactions that truly drive product growth! Seeing the growth of these Techstars founders halfway through the program has been nothing short of inspiring! 🌱 Now, I’m eager to connect with professionals in the marketing arena! If you or someone you know works in any of the following areas, I would love to chat: - Competitive Intelligence Analysis  - Performance Marketing  - Digital Marketing Management  - Marketing Operations  - Performance and Paid Media Your insights are incredibly valuable, and I believe we can learn from each other. Feel free to reach out or tag your marketing friends in the comments! Let’s connect and drive innovation together! 💬✨ Taka Morinaga GaganDeep Tomar Kazuki Miyauchi Stian Jakobsen Simon Gormuzov Trissino (Techstars '25) Cascade O-ID (Techstars '25) #TechstarsTokyo #MentorLife #UX #UserExperience #ProductGrowth #Startups #Accelerator #MarketingCommunity 

🚀 Introducing the Techstars Tokyo Accelerator 2025 Class! 🚀 With an acceptance rate of under 1%, these 12 remarkable companies were selected from a pool of applicants spanning 120 countries. Class 2025 embodies the new reality of global entrepreneurship: borderless, diverse and driven by innovation and represents “Tokyo going global”: Blueconomy AI (Techstars'25): Adding an intelligent decision layer to supercharge the global port operations workflow Boxtree, Inc. (Techstars '25) Inc.: Creating fun multiplayer games with infinite replayability for the era of spatial computing Cascade: An intuitive analytics platform with AI agents that turn insight into action Contera.ai: Turning company and market data into profit-boosting ads and SEO automatically DLeader, Inc. (Techstars'25): Faster, smarter drug discovery for all researchers through AI agents O-ID: Building a fully modular humanoid robotics platform specifically designed for critical environments Overwatch AI:  AI-native manual and content reader designed for high-stakes frontline environments Plexis.ai (Techstars '25): Adaptive AI agents as clinical infrastructure automating admin waste with human-level reasoning in real-time SoranoAI: No-code AI agent for weather intelligence in energy, agriculture and logistics Tokoshie Inc.: AI-powered 3D printing platform that helps manufacturing companies turn ideas into parts, faster, cheaper and without expert knowledge Trissino: Redefining competitive intelligence with AI to help B2B teams win more deals Vibtree - AI Powered Omni-Channel Communication Platform: Voice AI agent platform for sales and customer support communications Nationalities of founders: 🇧🇾 🇨🇱 🇨🇳 🇮🇳 🇯🇵 🇱🇾 🇲🇽 🇳🇱 🇳🇴 🇺🇦 🇺🇸 🇻🇳 Locations: 🇨🇦 🇮🇳 🇯🇵 🇲🇾 🇵🇱 🇷🇴 🇪🇸 🇦🇪 🇺🇸 I am so excited for the 3-month journey with them! Techstars Amazing supporters: JETRO: Noriya Tarutani Arisa Sonoda Kimi Sakoda Mitsui Fudosan: 太田聖 Kazuhiro T. EIRs: Tom Moss Barry O'Neill TS Tokyo Team: Chloe Takahashi Satomi Hoshi Sola Ebina Rina Takikawa Liam 駿太朗 Doyle Anna Kawagishi HAYATO ONODERA

📢Launching Techstars Tokyo 2025!📢 I'm excited to share the selected startups and the launch of Techstars Tokyo Accelerator 2025 program powered by JETRO Startup and Mitsui Fudosan! 12 amazing startups (6 Japan🗾, 6 around the world🌎) were selected from 120 countries and regions worldwide🚀   Meet our Techstars Tokyo Class of 2025!✨  👉Company Lookbook: https://lnkd.in/gztisyww 🚢Blueconomy AI (Techstars'25) (Bangalore, India) Aman Beniwal Aksheta More Adding an intelligent decision layer to supercharge the global port operations workflow. ♟️Boxtree, Inc. (Techstars '25) (San Francisco, US) Ethan Sherbondy Braulio Chavez Boxtree creates fun multiplayer games with infinite replayability for the era of spatial computing. 💡Cascade (Tokyo, Japan) Kazuki Miyauchi Riku Inoue An intuitive analytics platform with AI agents that turn insight into action. 📈Contera.ai (Delaware, US) Emin Aliekpierov Viktor Levchenko Vitaliy Aliekpierov Contera.ai turns company and market data into profit-boosting ads and SEO — automatically. 💊DLeader, Inc. (Techstars'25) (Osaka, Japan) QINGWEN CHEN, PhD ZHANG MINGXIN Weilin Yuan Faster, smarter drug discovery for all researchers through AI agents. 🤖O-ID株式会社 (Tokyo, Japan) ヤコブセン スティアン Simon Gormuzov Building a fully modular humanoid robotics platform specifically designed for critical environments. 🔎Overwatch AI (Barcelona, Spain) Leo Kotil Nikita Kaeshko The first AI-native manual and content reader designed for high-stakes frontline environments. 🩺Plexis.ai (Techstars '25) (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) Ahmed Shochin Minh Nguyen Adaptive AI agents as clinical infrastructure — automating 40% of admin waste with human-level reasoning in real-time. ☁SoranoAI (San Francisco, US) Ayako Kawano Alan Chan Shubhankar G. No-code AI agent for weather intelligence in energy, agriculture, and logistics. ⚙Tokoshie Inc. (Tokyo, Japan) Tatsunori Watanabe Rui Kobayashi 井口 拳太 AI-powered 3D printing platform that helps manufacturing companies turn ideas into parts, faster, cheaper, and without expert knowledge. 📊Trissino Inc (San Francisco, US / Tokyo, Japan) Taka Morinaga GaganDeep Tomar Redefining competitive intelligence with AI to help B2B teams win more deals 🗣Vibtree - AI Powered Omni-Channel Communication Platform (San Diego, US) Abhishek Gupta Voice AI agent platform for sales and customer support communications. Stay tuned for more exciting updates from Techstars Tokyo! 日本語のプレスリリースはこちら Japanese press release👉https://lnkd.in/gzJ-nfqd #TechstarsTokyo #Techstars #betterforfounders #givefirst #JETRO #JETROStartup #MitsuiFudosan #StartupAccelerator #JapanStartups